The prostitutes were enthralled. ‘The Kid walked through fire.’
‘Yes,’ said Charles. ‘But then, toward the end of the book, he guns down another man.’
‘Oh, he always does that,’ said Gloria. Apparently, this credential of a serial killer was a character flaw she could live with. ‘So the Wichita Kid walked through fire.’
‘Now,’ said Charles, ‘I believe you mentioned running into Sparrow recently.’
‘Last week,’ said Gloria. ‘Maxine and me, we were cruising for Johns at the computer convention in Columbus Circle. Sparrow was there. Wasn’t she, Maxine?’
‘She was.’ Maxine resumed chewing her gum.
‘She was workin’ the crowd, same as us,’ said Gloria. ‘But nothin’ obvious – no flash. She didn’t look like a whore no more. She looked real nice, didn’t she, Maxine?’
‘Very nice.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Charles. ‘Did you ladies notice anything odd that day? Something out of the – ’
‘You mean Sparrow’s new nose job? Or the guy who slashed her arm with a razor?’
Deluthe sat at a squad-room desk, very close to Maxine, as the woman concentrated on the computer monitor. They were attempting to create their own monster with photographic slices of other people’s faces, eyes and noses, ears and mouths, assisted by FBI software.
A few desks away, a sketch artist was working with Gloria and using an old-fashioned pencil. ‘Can you describe him a little better?’
‘Yeah, he was a cold one,’ said Gloria.
‘Well, that doesn’t – ’ The exasperated sketch artist saw Riker’s hand signal to keep his mouth shut, and the man fell silent.
‘The color of his hair,’ said Riker. ‘Was it light or dark?’
‘Blond,’ said Gloria, raising her voice to be heard across the room. ‘His hair was blond, wasn’t it, Maxine?’
‘No,’ her friend called back. ‘It was brown, average old brown.’
‘Maxine, you’re nuts. He was blond, I tell ya. But real natural.’ The prostitute glanced at Ronald Deluthe’s head. ‘Not a bleach job.’
Hoping to strike a compromise, Riker said, ‘Maybe it was blond hair that went dark when he grew up.’
‘Yeah,’ said Maxine. ‘That’s it. His hair looked like Gloria’s roots.’ She turned to Deluthe. ‘Make it brown.’
The sketch artist’s version was gray charcoal pencil. ‘No, this isn’t working,’ said Gloria. ‘Start over. Make it a profile picture -like a mug shot, ‘cause that’s all I saw of him. Maxine saw his whole face.’ She called out to her friend. ‘Didn’t you, Maxine?’
‘I did.’
Gloria went on with her story of the encounter for Riker’s benefit. ‘Well, I was gonna say hi to her when this stiff-lookin’jerk comes up behind her. So I just stand there. Didn’t wanna say nothin’ to queer it for Sparrow. But the John, he don’t say nothin’, either. Sparrow hasn’t even noticed him yet. Then this freak pulls a box cutter out of his gym bag.’
Gloria looked up at Charles, who wore the expensive clothes of a man unfamiliar with box cutters. ‘It’s a big metal grip with a razor.’ She turned back to Riker. ‘He cut her arm. I couldn’t believe it. All them people around, and he cut her right there. Cold as you please. Then he walks away, real calm, like he does this kind of thing every day. He stuck the box cutter back in his bag before Sparrow even knew she’d been slashed. She didn’t know till I told her. I said something like – Hey, you’re bleedin’. Isn’t that what I said, Maxine?’
‘That’s close.’ Maxine was no longer listening to her friend. She was staring at Deluthe’s monitor. The computer-generated image was taking shape faster than Gloria’s drawing. Deluthe had picked up on the other woman’s cue of a cold stare. A pair of vacant eyes slipped into place on the screen.
‘It’s better,’ said Maxine, ‘but it still needs work.’
Charles crossed the room with a photograph retrieved from the cork wall of Butler and Company. He handed Maxine a wedding portrait of Erik Homer, the scarecrow’s father.
‘The eyes aren’t the same.’ She turned to Deluthe. ‘The mouth is, but don’t make him smile like that.’
Riker handed Gloria a roast beef on rye. ‘Do you remember anything about the bag he was carrying?’
‘Nothin’ special. Right, Maxine? His bag wasn’t special.’
Maxine shook her head. ‘It looks just like my gym bag. Got it on sale at Kmart. Paid almost nothin’ for it.’
Riker moved to Maxine’s chair and handed her the container of soup she had ordered from the deli. ‘What did the bag look like?’
‘It was gray with one stripe.’
Deluthe stopped work. ‘A red stripe?’
‘Yeah, just like mine.’
The young cop stared at the image on his screen, then crossed the room to look at the sketch artist’s pad. ‘I’ve seen this guy. He was in the crowd outside the last crime scene. I remember his bag. I’ve got one just like it. But his had a red stripe. That was the only difference.’
‘Kmart?’ asked Maxine. ‘Nylon, right?’
‘No, L.L. Bean.’ Deluthe turned to Riker. ‘My bag is canvas, and so was his.’
Riker turned to Charles. ‘Keep the ladies company.’ He grabbed Deluthe by the arm and propelled him down the hall to the incident room. They walked to the wall where exterior crime-scene photos were pinned up alongside autopsy pictures of Kennedy Harper.
‘Which one?’ Riker pointed to the pictures of the crowd gathered outside Kennedy Harper’s building. ‘Which face?’
The younger cop turned to point at the rear wall and the photograph between the scarecrow’s T-shirt and the baseball cap. It was the picture of a man whose face was turned away from the camera. ‘He’s that one… Sorry.’
A breeze swept papers and cigarette packs down the narrow SoHo street, and a car alarm went off with a high-pitched incessant squeal. An irate tenant on an upper floor leaned far out his window and hurled a dark missile to the pavement, but the bronze baby shoe fell short of the offending vehicle and narrowly missed the two walking men.
Riker glanced up at the civilian and yelled, ‘Lousy shot!’ In a lower voice, he said to Charles Butler, ‘But it could’ve been worse. It’s scary how many of these people have guns.’
Another man emerged from a building just up ahead. He held a baseball bat. When he spotted Riker and Charles, he thought better of leaving the shadows of his doorway. As the two men came abreast of him, the bat disappeared behind the man’s back.
‘Now that guy means business,’ said Riker, when they were well past the car with the screaming alarm. ‘He’ll get the job done.’
They turned the corner at the sound of breaking glass and the bangs of wood on metal – followed by blessed silence.
They were heading toward Charles’s building on the next block. Mallory would be at work in the back office at Butler and Company, and there might not be another opportunity to speak privately with Riker. ‘When you said the little girl was dead – well, obviously, you didn’t mean Kathy had actually died. So presumably – ’
‘I’ve seen her death certificate. It was backed up by sworn statements from two fire marshals. And neither one of those guys owed any favors to me or Lou.’
‘You’re not going to explain that, are you?’ Charles’s tone was fatalistic. ‘Not a hint, not a clue.’
‘Nope.’
‘And that business of murder and arson charges – ’
‘Not a chance.’
CHAPTER 18
Mallory stood in the office kitchen and poured another cup of coffee. Her eyes were closing. When had she slept last?
Old pictures were breaking into her thoughts again, wreaking havoc with her concentration. The rats were coming for the whore. Greedy vermin. Not content with the blood and meat of Frankie Delight, they wanted Sparrow too.